How smendenh started their web page design journey

Company name

Overview

I am technologist and entrepreneur. I have been fortunate enough to start and sell to internet related companies. I am active in the local technology community. I also enjoy poker. I run a monthly sponsored poker event called Geeks Love Poker. I was also the co-founder of the Web Content Mavens, a grass root Content Management group that 1000+ members.

Currently I am Senior Technical Architect at Ironworks consulting in the Washington DC area. In the fall, I teach a graduate level computer science course on e-commerce security.

The reason I am starting this blog is to discover new business opportunities. Whether it is a new job or finding a partner for a new business idea.

Requirements

Notes:
I would like a design for my personal blog site scottmendenhall.com.
The attached wireframe is a suggestion for the minimum content areas for the design. Other blog related content areas may be added.
The positioning of the content areas do not have to be like the wireframe. In fact, I would prefer if it was not.
I would like an abstract, clean, smooth, modern looking design, but if you want to try to incorporate the categories in the design that is fine too. However, I am thinking that the winning design is going to be abstract. Ideally, the design will be blue in color, but the color could be changed for other blogs. For example if I wanted to have a blog dedicated to web architecture, it may be purple. And a poker blog would be red.
I like the smooth clean design of this blog: http://blog.created.dk
Not sure if it matters, but I plan to use ExpressionEngine as my blog software
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.